Barbaria is torn. What is she to do? She hadn’t been an operative more than a month and already the Gestapo had discovered who she was. Should she tell Messaline? What should she tell her? Then she remembered Messa telling her to tell the truth as she knew it- one cannot be tripped up with lies.
That night over a shared magnum of wine Barbaria works up the courage to tell Messaline. She worries that Messa will take her out to a field and put a bullet in her head. She says to Messa “Hermann knows who I am; an OSS plant! If you need to eliminate me I understand.”
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“’Eliminate you’… I think not. He is smitten with you! Why else would you still be alive?”
“But I put you in danger!” Barb replies.
“As I have not you- How do you think he found out who you are if I had not told him?” Messa asks.
“You did
what???”
“I told him who you are because they think I am a Nazi sympathizer. This only confirms it” Messa relies.
“You could have had me hanged!”
“It is obvious the OSS found you expendable. You neck is a small trade-off for the war effort. Look, Barbaria, espionage is not a pretty business” Messa says as the drone of British Lancasters rumble overhead. “I am sorry I put you in this position. I hope he is at least a decent fuck. Above us twenty percent of those bastards will never make it home. It is the price of this war.”
“Do not lecture me, Messaline. In the daylight the B-17s fly over us. My Brother flew in one- a tail gunner. I don’t know if he is a prisoner of war or dead” I hiss angrily.
“I am sorry. I did not know” Messa says. “But I need you to stay with Hermann. Do not ask him questions. He will talk more than he should sooner or later. Just seduce him and listen and maybe we can get your brother back.”
Barb had little trouble with the seduction…
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Tree